WHS and video stuttering

T

theDreamer

2[H]4U
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Oct 11, 2006
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I recently added three WD15EADS to my WHS and have a few movies on the drives (other 4 drives are 1TB WD Green drives all at 98%). I went to stream the blu-ray .ISO files to my HTPC and it loaded fine and the movie started playing just as normal, but about 45 minutes into the movie it started to stutter as if it were buffering or something. I paused the movie and about 30 seconds later played it and it worked fine for the rest.

Since that one incident it has happened on most of the movies that are on the WD15EADS drives, nothing else has changed in the network. HTPC is the same, WHS is the same, I have tested some of the older movies on the 1TB drives and no stuttering issues from those.

My thoughts so far are:
~The WD15EADS are slowing the transfer rate or actually turning off completely
~My files are all corrupted or having issues
 
valve1138 said:
Specs of server. htpc and network?
Click to expand...

Server:
AMD board
4850e
160GB - OS Drive
4 - 1TB WD Green
3 - 1.5TB WD Green
Onboard graphics
4GB of memory
Noroc 4020 case
I am using those cheap PCI-X 8 port cards to handle all the drives
WHS

HTPC:
AMD board
4850e
300GB Hard drive
Onboard graphics
Vista 32 bit Ultimate

That is what I know off the top of my head, the system are very close to one another in build designs really.

nitrobass24 said:
This sounds like a WHS demigrator.exe issue
Click to expand...

Just looked it up, will do more research.
 
Adding a separate reply.
I have changed one thing on my WHS setup that I forgot about. I am now backing up the music/picture/software folders, I might turn this off and let the system run for a day and see if that works.
 
If you've just copied a bunch of files to the server or are actively copying files to the server while streaming, then the studdering is most likely caused by demigrator.exe balancing the drives, especially if you have duplication turned on. It has nothing to do with whether the drives are green (5400 - 5900 rpm), drives or regular 7200 rpm drives. What you are experiencing is a known problem that most WHS users who stream blu-ray experience every once in awhile. One of the best practices that I've starting doing is to NOT do any file copying within a couple of hours before I want to watch blu-ray streams. Since I started doing this, I've not experienced the studdering issue. If I copy a blu-ray file to my WHS (I have duplication turned on for my video share), and immediately go watch the new movie; it will studder sometime within the first hour of the movie. But if I wait until the file has been duplicated before I watch it, I do not have the studdering problem.
 
You don't know what onboard graphics you have on your HTPC? Or what codecs you are using? You may not have a board capable of hardware acceleration. Or if you do you may not be using the proper codecs to utilize that. Just something to look in to.

Also, why full iso's on the server? That's a huge amount of space. Why not rip the movie to an mkv and then if you really want to see the extras on the disc you can dust it off an load it up. Or do you watch extras so often that would be inconvenient?
I wonder if the sheer size of the file could be causing issues?

I stream my blu ray rips from my server all the time without issue. Even while copying files around or maxing out my bandwidth with large downloads.
 
Only time I ever had video stuttering issues when streaming from my late WHS was when it was defragging at 12am.
 
Turned off duplication and played a movie that I knew was having the issue, zero problems, looks like duplication will be staying off.
 
theDreamer said:
Turned off duplication and played a movie that I knew was having the issue, zero problems, looks like duplication will be staying off.
Click to expand...

It's perhaps the best feature of WHS, you'd be foolish to leave it off permanently. Just wait until the file is duplicated before playing it, problem solved.
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
It's perhaps the best feature of WHS, you'd be foolish to leave it off permanently. Just wait until the file is duplicated before playing it, problem solved.
Click to expand...

Well, the only items that were on duplication are files I have in multiple locations (Photos, videos, software, music). They currently reside:
~Desktop
~Server
~Back-up on Server
~Netbook (all but software of course)
~Archos 5 (all but software of course)

If any of it changes I will temporarily turn duplication back on, but the other reason I know it is doing it is because I only boot my server for when it is needed. I get home from work and want to watch a movie or TV show I turn the server on and enjoy then power off.
 
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